


Hollow

by MyDarlingClementine



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, I'm Sorry, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy Whump, Number Five | The Boy has PTSD, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Pre-Canon, S1E1, no beta we die like ben
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 13:07:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29701005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyDarlingClementine/pseuds/MyDarlingClementine
Summary: Five took a breath. He let it out slowly."I'm sorry, ok? For everything. I really am - no, don't interrupt me." He made a shooeing motion back towards his siblings but he didn't turn around. This was hard enough to get through, and he didn't want any interruptions until he was done.
Relationships: Dolores/Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy), Number Five | The Boy & Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy) & Everyone
Comments: 25
Kudos: 89





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I realize this isn't the most in character Five, which is why I've written it separate and not tied to my more "in character" fics. 
> 
> But i felt like this story was important to write and its helped me jump back on the writing wagon train. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy, or if not, I'll try to get you some more adventures of IC Five soon!

Five took a breath. He let it out slowly. 

"I'm sorry, ok? For everything. I really am - no, don't interrupt me." He made a shooeing motion back towards his siblings. 

Five could visualize them standing there, mouths open in protest. But he didn't turn around. This was hard enough to get through, and he didn't want any interruptions until he was done.

Five took a breath, vainly trying to fill the hollowness inside of him. 

"I'm sorry that I wasn't there to support you, Vanya. I knew Dad was doing a number on you, but I thought I'd be able to fix it. We were just kids, and you didn't deserve that." 

Five swallowed and his voice softened slightly, colored with pain. "We were just kids, Vanya. I made mistakes - we all did. But mine were due to pride… and stupidity. And for that, I'm so, so sorry."

"But now…well I'm older than you. I've had to live with myself for longer than you got a chance to live. And all I've ever wanted since that day was to fix it. I _swore_ to myself that I would fix it. To give you a chance to live the life you _should_ have led. Should have had the _chance_ to lead.

Five felt his eyes grow hot. Squeezing them shut, he felt moisture on his cheeks. "It's all my fault, I know it. Everything that happened - it could have all been different. It _should_ have been different. I don't know if you can ever forgive me. I - I don't know if I would want you to."

_Because - that might mean I would have to forgive myself._

Dolores had told him that this day would come. She had pushed him to forgive himself. But he had needed time. He hadn't been ready. And Dolores, the queen that she was, she was patient. She had waited. 

Five didn't know if he had the heart to tell her that all the time in the universe wouldn't be enough. 

The decades had dragged, but also flown by and now he was older than he ever thought he'd have a right to be.

Yet he _still_ hasn't made things right with his siblings. And that was unacceptable. Five was an adult, and felt the weight of his responsibilities as an adult. Felt _grief_ like an adult, not like the small boy - _how had he ever been so small_ \- who had slammed his knife into the table and run out the door of the Academy, upending their lives forever.

His words had been directed at Vanya, perhaps cowardly, because he knew - he _hoped -_ that she would be the most likely to forgive. But his grief, his apology, extended to all of his siblings.

Five took another breath, and made to continue. They had been patient so far, letting him get the words out, and he was grateful, but none of the Hargreeves had ever had an abundance of that trait, and he didn't want to push their limits. 

"Luther, Diego - I -" he swallowed again. "I know I've never been your favorite sibling. But you still looked out for me. I didn't appreciate it at the time, but let me tell you that there's no one else in the world that I'd trust as much as you, no one that I'd rather have on my team. And, if there's more missions in the future, I - well I just hope we can do them together."

"Allison, I'm sorry that you felt like your powers made your life miserable. I know what it's like to make bad choices. I know what it's like to live with the consequences. Klaus, you didn't even get a choice, you never did. And I know you've suffered so much because of it."

_I'm sorry I wasn't there to protect you._

The tears were running freely down Five's face now, and he halfheartedly swiped at them with his sleeve. 

"And Ben - I -" Ben was dead. Had been for years. Still, it didn't feel right not to include him. Ben was, and always would be part of the team for Five. "Ben, I'm sorry about what happened to you. So, so sorry. Everyone did their best. Please don't blame them. If I had been there -"

_I'm sorry._

Five let out an audible sob. One, and then another tumbled out of him, the noises coming unbidden from somewhere deep inside. Five couldn't remember the last time he had cried in front of anyone other than Dolores. Had he _ever_ cried in front of his siblings? It had been so long, he honestly couldn't remember. Five had been the most competitive out of the children, and he had a funny feeling that his siblings thought of him as an emotionless robot. 

Wiping the snot from his nose and trying to get a handle on his shuddering breaths, he wondered what they thought of him now. What would he see in their eyes if he turned around to look at them? Anger? Judgement?

Or…something else? 

_Patience?_

Dare he hope? Perhaps they would spare a scrap of patience for him. Five told himself that would be enough. It had to be.

He couldn't dare hope for anything more.

He was decades past hoping for kindness.

A lifetime away from hoping for _love_.

Five hadn't understood love when he left. Sure, in hindsight he had recognized the glimmers of it in the best times with his siblings. Late night talks with Vanya. Smiles, or a surprise hug from Klaus. Grace's tender ministrations after training or a mission. 

But Five had been too young, too _certain_ of his place in the world to dwell on those feelings for too long. 

He had been too strong, too impatient, too prideful for _love._

And now? The apocalypse had worn down any scraps of pride to nubs long ago. Five didn't feel strong anymore - not in the same misplaced way that he had as a boy. Sure, he still _appeared_ strong, and he had the wiry grit that comes from survival. But on the inside, Five felt like a worn china doll. He thought that it would only take the lightest touch to make him shatter. 

_Would anyone help put me back together?_

For decades, Five had dreamed of a welcome reunion with his siblings. The idea has nourished him, sustained him through unspeakable times, when pride and strength and will had left him, and all he had left to cling to was the dream. 

Would any of them be able to see past his mistakes? See that the world had broken him? That he finally understood humility?

Would they care?

Would anyone finally see Five for the man he was? Or was he doomed to be forever seen only as the self-centered boy that ran away?

_There's only one way to find out._

Five closed his eyes and took a breath. He turned around, exhaling shakily, and opened his eyes.

The bright light of the naked sun had burnt the landscape around him to a crisp

Ash covered the ground, the wind whipping it up into swirls that blew around the ratty flags marking six graves. 

It had been three decades since Five had buried his siblings. 

He was old now, older than his years. The stress of survival had taken its toll on his back, his lungs, his knees, his mind. He felt hollow, a shell of a man.

_A ghost._

The only thing that remained unchanged was his dream. To go back. To fix his mistakes. To set things right. 

Five _knew_ with fierce certainty that he loved his siblings. He desperately regretted that it had taken him too long to figure it out. 

He could only hope that his siblings would have learned how to forgive him. Maybe even, to _love_ him.

Someday, he would find out.

Five dropped to his knees, which creaked and cracked with age. He buried his head in his hands, no longer bothering to try to contain the sobs.

_Someday_. 

  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

_15 years later -_

Five set his briefcase down on the hill behind the fence. He pulled out the worn paperback that comprised the entirety of his personal possessions. Despite his careful efforts to keep it preserved, forty-five years had taken its toll on the book, and in that time Five had memorized every crack, every discoloration, every small tear.

They mirrored the ones in his own body. Forty-five years. 

A lifetime. 

For almost five of those years now, Five had worked as a time-traveling assassin for The Commission. It had been a welcome reprieve from the desperation of the apocalypse, but it brought its own unique burdens. It wasn’t the kind of work that made a man. At least not the type of man that Five wanted to be. 

Still, though, it had been the best - no, the _only_ option to get back to his family. To buy time to finish the equations, and to find a feasible way to make the jump home. As the years passed in the wasteland that was the end of the world, Five had worked desperately to find a way to return to his family. The longer he worked, the more the math revealed its secrets, yet the harder the task became. Jumping back in time a year was difficult; jumping back multiple decades with any accuracy was almost impossible. 

Time had always been a cruel mistress.

Initially, The Commission had sent Five jobs at times that almost but never quite overlapped his own life. And if they did, there was always an excuse for why another agent was needed to accompany him. 1993, East London. 1987, Shanghai. 2003, Buenos Aires. Five knew it for the bullshit it was. When he put his foot down and stopped accepting missions with a traveling companion, he stopped being assigned _anything_ remotely close to 2001. 

Yet Five had never stopped working the equations. He _knew_ he could jump a significant distance forward in time. He just needed the right opportunity.

And here he was. 1963, Dallas.

Five didn’t know if it was just someone being sloppy in handing out his assignment, or whether they figured that he couldn’t jump forward almost six decades. 

Still, though. This was perhaps the best opportunity he would get, and he couldn’t let it go to waste. 

He let out a shaky breath and fingered the equations again. Why was he hesitating? Time travel jumps forward were infinitely easier than backwards. More than once Five had fought the urge to just drop the briefcase and run. To take a chance jumping forward from 1923. From 1937. 

The anticipation - the _fear_ \- hollowed him out inside. There was so much riding on this. This was _everything._

Five forced his body to relax, rolling his shoulders and feeling the familiar creaks in his bones. rolled his shoulders, felt them creak and let out a sigh. When they had pulled him out of the apocalypse, the Commission had fixed up some of his injuries and gave him some enhanced strength and coordination, but he stopped short of a full body modification. Five couldn’t exactly put his finger on why (besides his general suspicion of the Commission’s motives, which went without saying). 

He was...he was _comfortable_ in this body, as uncomfortable as it was.

It was the _only_ thing that Five had left of himself. Besides Vanya's book. He had even left Dolores in the apocalypse, knowing that it would be impractical to cart around a mannequin once he left the wasteland.

FIve missed his wife terribly. Her loss had taken up root in his heart along with the loss of everyone else he had ever held dear- all six of them. 

Five looked up at the sky and wondered for the millionth time what his siblings would think when they saw him. Would they laugh at his grey hair? As a kid, he had always looked _younger_ than his age. Now though… FIve knew that he looked every one of his fifty-eight (give or take) years. 

He shook his head, trying to clear the wandering thoughts. Here he was, a man of action, who had survived countless horrors, killed dozens without hesitation.

But this? On the cusp of getting everything he ever wanted, Five found himself...hesitating. 

He hated himself for it. For the weakness. For the hollow feeling that never quite left him alone, not for long anyways. The aching loss of his family, and worse than that, the knowledge of what had happened to them in his absence. 

_What if they blame me?_

Five knew he was never the most loved of the Hargreeves siblings. He was too ambitious, too prideful, too impatient for _feelings._ Even Vanya, whose book was full of bittersweet words describing their childhood, the good times, and how much she had missed them - he knew her well enough to read between the lines to her anger, her frustration.

 _Why did you leave me, Five_? Her silent words echoed in his head.. He would cry out her name at night, waking from a nightmare where she called for him, over and over again, but he could never make her hear him. 

_I’m so sorry, Vanya._

He would apologize to Vanya first, he had decided long ago. She deserved it, and she was the one he thought would be most likely to understand. He had decided to try to get her alone as soon as possible. To talk to her, explain things. 

It was time. There was no longer any reason to wait. 

Five took a breath, tucked the book away, and channeled the blue energy between his hands. 

\---

“Does anyone else see little Number Five?”

Five looked up at the strangers’ faces staring at him. Five of them. Four that he had seen before, that had been carved into his memory as clearly as if into stone. Faces on his dead siblings that he had buried forty-five years ago. 

And one face that he had never seen.

_Vanya._

Five was dizzy. From the time travel, but also from the realization that _he had actually done it._

_I’m home._

Five looked up, and opened his mouth to speak, then frowned in puzzlement as he saw that everyone was staring at him. Staring _down_ at him.

He looked down wordlessly - 

_Shit shit shit. I must have botched the equations._

Part of Five wanted to laugh. It was so stupid. After all this time, after all of his careful preparations - _this_ is what happened to him? 

_I’m thirteen again._

Five looked up. His siblings were still staring at him expectantly, but his mind was suddenly blank. The words that he had rehearsed for years - for decades - had flown out of his brain at the ridiculousness of this situation.

He wasn’t ready for this.

After all this time, he _still_ wasn’t ready for this.

“ _Shit.”_

_\---_

Five stood at the end of the kitchen table, trying to concentrate on making his peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich (something he had dreamed about for _decades)_. He moved slowly, methodically, willing his hands to stop shaking, and the butterflies in his stomach to settle. 

His siblings gathered together at the other end, almost piled on top of each other like when they had been kids. They stared at him. 

Five almost panicked. The reception he was getting from his siblings was...on the worse end of the spectrum that he had imagined. _Chilly_ would be an appropriate term. He choked down despair, and reminded himself that they had been (currently were - it wasn’t the past anymore) going through a lot. He recalled what he knew from Vanya’s book. Luther’s remaining at the Academy (still though, he looked…so much bigger than Five remembered). Allison’s career...and daughter. Klaus...Klaus’s… - 

Five looked up at his previously favorite brother. “Nice dress” he said. 

Five wanted to say so much more. _I love you. I’ve missed you._

Five didn’t say either of those things. Instead, he distantly heard himself converse with his siblings, the words coming out of his mouth snarky and impatient, just like when he was thirteen. His voice sounded odd and high, a voice that had once been a part of him but that he had long forgotten about. 

_Now is not the time to panic, Number Five._ Maybe it was being back at the Academy, but the voice in his head had a distinct tone of _Reginald_ to it. 

_I...I need to get out of here._

He needed to think. 

He needed to talk to Vanya.

 _Vanya first, then...then I can deal with the others._

Vanya would listen. FIve was _certain_ that she would. 

\----

Five stood in Vanya’s apartment for a long time after she closed her bedroom door. He heard the soft sounds of her snoring mixing with the hum of the refrigerator and the electric lights. One of the most startling things that he had discovered after being recruited by the Commission was how _loud_ the pre-apocalypse world was. His ears had been tuned to silence, except for noises of his own making. The noises of modern life, of _people_ especially had been overwhelming at first. 

Five listened to her soft noises and tried not to despair. The hollowness ate at him, threatened to devour him. 

She hadn't believed him. 

_Vanya_ hadn't believed him. Sure, she had listened, had helped patch him up - that was another thing - the fact that the Commission were _already_ after him did not bode well for his chances to achieve his goal to stop the apocalypse. He had been almost certain - stupidly certain - that he would have more time. 

Time was always too much and yet never enough for Five. 

_This is all so fucked up beyond belief._

Five cursed himself. Vanya hadn’t believed him. He had been _certain_ that she would believe him. Sure, maybe she would have been angry, or sad - Five had prepared himself for a wide range of negative receptions. But he hadn’t been prepared for his sister to think he was a liar. 

_Or insane._

He played back the conversation in his head again, trying to find the turn where things went wrong. He couldn’t put his finger on a specific place, so he reasoned it must be something else spurring the disbelief. Was it his voice? His face? The fact he looked like a _fucking thirteen year old again?_

_Would she have believed me if I looked like myself?_

Five closed his eyes, taking in and letting out a slow breath. There were so many things he had wanted to say. Now, he wasn’t sure if he would get the chance. 

He tried to tell himself that it didn’t matter if anyone believed him. If anyone missed him. 

If anyone _loved_ him. 

Five pushed it all down. It was time to get to work. He had fought too long to get here, and he wouldn’t let anything as incorporeal and inconsequential as _feelings_ get in the way of achieving his goal.

He had a world to save. 

_It doesn’t matter if they love me._

He would save the world anyway. 


End file.
